aw the same appearance in nature, and strained every nerve
to give it. If I could hit off this edgy appearance, and insert the
reflected light in the furrows of old age in half a morning, I did not
think I had lost a day. Beneath the shrivelled yellow parchment look of
the skin, there was here and there a streak of the blood-colour tinging
the face; this I made a point of conveying, and did not cease to compare
what I saw with what I did (with jealous, lynx-eyed watchfulness) till
I succeeded to the best of my ability and judgment. How many revisions
were there! How many attempts to catch an expression which I had seen
the day before! How often did we try to get the old position, and wait
for the return of the same light! There was a puckering up of the lips,
a cautious introversion of the eye under the shadow of the bonnet,
indicative of the feebleness and suspicion of old age, which at last we
managed, after many trials and some quarrels, to a tolerable nicety.
The picture was never finished, and I might have gone on with it to the
present hour.(2) I used to sit it on the ground when my day's work was
done, and saw revealed to me with swimming eyes the birth of new hopes
and of a new world of objects. The painter thus learns to look at Nature
with different eyes. He before saw her 'as in a glass darkly, but now
face to face.' He understands the texture and meaning of the visible
universe, and 'sees into the life of things,' not by the help of
mechanical instruments, but of the improved exercise of his faculties,
and an intimate sympathy with Nature. The meanest thing is not lost upon
him, for he looks at it with an eye to itself, not merely to his own
vanity or interest, or the opinion of the world. Even where there is
neither beauty nor use--if that ever were--still there is truth, and a
sufficient source of gratification in the indulgence of curiosity and
activity of mind. The humblest printer is a true scholar; and the best
of scholars--the scholar of Nature. For myself, and for the real comfort
and satisfaction of the thing, I had rather have been Jan Steen, or
Gerard Dow, than the greatest casuist or philologer that ever lived.
The painter does not view things in clouds or 'mist, the common gloss of
theologians,' but applies the same standard of truth and disinterested
spirit of inquiry, that influence his daily practice, to other subjects.
He perceives form, he distinguishes character. He reads men and books
with